The Importance of Identity and Access Management in Today's Digital World

Every security strategy has a moment where it stops being theoretical.

For most organisations, that moment arrives when a trusted login does something untrusted. A finance user authorises a payment they did not mean to approve. A contractor’s account is still active weeks after offboarding. A developer tool quietly inherits permissions it never should have had. The breach story is messy, but the entry point is usually clean. It looks like normal access.

That’s why identity and access management has shifted from “IT plumbing” to a board-level control. Not because it’s trendy, but because it sits at the intersection of how modern business actually runs: cloud platforms, software as a service, remote work, third parties, automation, and machine-to-machine processes. When the perimeter disappeared, identity became the decision point.

And the uncomfortable truth is this: if you don’t know who or what is accessing your systems, and whether they should, you don’t really have control. You have hope.

What Identity and Access Management Actually Means

At its simplest, Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the set of people, processes, and technology that answers two questions:

• Who (or what) are you?
• What are you allowed to do?

The first part is authentication. The second is authorisation. IAM exists to make those answers reliable, repeatable, and auditable across your business, not just in one app or one department.

In practice, IAM usually includes a few distinct capabilities that mature organisations treat as a connected system:

• Authentication proves the identity (or workload) trying to log in.
• Authorisation determines what that identity can access and what actions it can take.
• Identity lifecycle management covers joiners, movers, and leavers so access matches reality.
• Monitoring and enforcement detects suspicious access and blocks risky behaviour before it turns into an incident.

NIST’s Digital Identity Guidelines describe digital identity through risk-managed controls across identity proofing, authentication, and federation, which is another way of saying this is not one tool. It is a discipline that spans the identity lifecycle. 

Why IAM Has Become Mission-Critical

Security teams used to spend most of their time defending networks. Today, attackers aim for the credentials that let them walk through the front door.

That shift is visible in major breach analysis. Verizon’s DBIR 2025 resource page highlights that within the “basic web application attacks” pattern, stolen credentials show up in the majority of breaches discussed under that pattern.

But what makes IAM feel urgent right now is not just stolen passwords. It’s how identity-based attacks scale:

• Cloud and SaaS have multiplied the number of logins, apps, and permission sets organisations rely on.
• Remote work and third-party access mean fewer “safe” network assumptions.
• Automation means more service accounts, API keys, and machine identities, often with elevated access.
• Attackers increasingly bypass passwords and target the identity layer itself, including authorisation abuse.

Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2025 is blunt about where this is going: as user defences improve, attackers pivot to “workload identities” such as apps, services, and scripts that access cloud resources, because these identities often hold elevated privileges and lack sufficient controls.

So the modern IAM question is not only “Are employees using strong login methods?” It’s also “Do we control the identities our systems run on?”

IAM Is the Foundation of Zero Trust

Most organisations talk about Zero Trust as if it’s a product. It is not. It’s a security model that treats access as a decision you make continuously, not a one-time gate you pass through.

That model works only if identity is strong.

CISA’s Zero Trust Maturity Model emphasises enforcing access so the right users and entities get access to the right resources, at the right time, for the right purpose, without granting excessive access.

That sentence sounds simple, but it’s a high bar. It implies you can:

• Identify users and non-person entities reliably
• Validate them using appropriate assurance methods
• Restrict access based on context, not convenience
• Prove, after the fact, that you did all of the above

If your IAM is weak, Zero Trust becomes a slogan. If your IAM is strong, Zero Trust becomes operational.

The IAM Capabilities That Matter Most in Real Life

Most IAM programmes fail in one of two ways: they either become a technical project with no business ownership, or they become a policy project with no practical enforcement. The strongest programmes treat IAM as an operating system for access.

Identity becomes manageable when you centralise it

When identity is fragmented, every application becomes its own security island. That’s how you end up with inconsistent password rules, missed deprovisioning, and no clear view of who has access to what.

Centralising identity typically means an identity provider that acts as the authoritative source for authentication and access decisions across systems. This is also where single sign-on earns its keep: fewer passwords, fewer lockouts, less shadow IT, and cleaner enforcement points.

The value is not that users log in faster. The value is that security can apply consistent controls across the estate.

Strong authentication is now table stakes

Passwords alone are not a control, they are an invitation.

The baseline is multi-factor authentication, but not all MFA is equal. Attackers can still phish one-time codes. They can still intercept push approvals through fatigue tactics. They can still trick users into authorising malicious OAuth apps.

OWASP’s MFA guidance makes a practical point leaders often miss: you can reduce user friction and improve security by using risk-based prompts and modern authenticators like passkeys, which are resistant to phishing and can be more seamless for users.

Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2025 also states that modern MFA reduces the risk of identity compromise by more than 99 per cent, which is one of the clearest ROI statements you’ll find in security.

Authorisation is where breaches turn into disasters

A stolen credential is bad. A stolen credential with excessive permissions is catastrophic.

This is where least privilege moves from a principle to a measurable control: users and systems should have only the access required to do their job, for only as long as they need it.

CISA’s Zero Trust model logic pushes you toward exactly this: right access, right time, right purpose. In practice, that means fewer standing privileges, more just-in-time elevation for sensitive actions, and tighter segmentation between environments.

Privileged access needs its own rules

Admin access is not just “more access”. It is access that can change the rules of the game.

Privileged access management focuses on controlling, monitoring, and minimising administrative privileges. It typically includes credential vaulting, session controls, just-in-time access, approvals, and high-fidelity auditing.

If your IAM programme treats privileged access as a spreadsheet problem, you’re going to find out the hard way why attackers love admin accounts.

Identity governance is how you keep access aligned with reality

Even good IAM implementations drift over time because organisations change. People change roles. Teams restructure. Contractors come and go. New apps appear. Old ones do not get decommissioned properly.

That’s why identity governance matters: you need recurring access reviews, clear ownership, and policies that make “access creep” visible and fixable, not normal.

If you want a more implementation-led lens, the ESF IAM best practices guide is useful precisely because it frames IAM as an administrative discipline that needs ongoing management, not a one-time rollout.

The New IAM Risk Surface Leaders Keep Underestimating

IAM used to be mostly about employees. That mental model is outdated.

Non-human identities are now a primary target

Cloud environments run on service principals, managed identities, API keys, tokens, and automation scripts. These identities often need powerful access to do their job, and they rarely get the same scrutiny as human users.

Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2025 describes this as a growing blind spot, noting that attackers are increasingly exploiting workload identities and authorisation paths like OAuth permissions to bypass MFA and persist beyond password resets.

If you want one practical takeaway from that: you cannot secure modern environments by securing only employees.

Identity attacks are increasingly authorisation attacks

Some of the most damaging “identity incidents” are not stolen passwords at all. They’re granted permissions that should never have been granted.

OAuth consent phishing is a good example. The user is technically authenticated. The attacker’s win comes from getting the user to approve access they do not understand. The account is now “legitimately” connected to something malicious.

This is exactly why IAM needs to cover not just login, but what happens after login.

Fraud and deepfake-driven identity proofing is creeping into enterprise workflows

NIST SP 800-63-4 explicitly includes updates for modern fraud requirements and forged media considerations, reflecting that identity proofing and verification are facing new manipulation techniques. 

This matters even if you are not a consumer brand. Hiring, onboarding, procurement, and partner access all rely on identity proofing steps that can be gamed.

A Practical IAM Diagnostic Leaders Can Use

Most organisations do not need a perfect IAM programme. They need a programme that is honest about risk and predictable in how it improves.

Here’s a simple diagnostic that works well in workshops because it avoids tool debates and forces clarity.

Question one: Do we have a single source of truth for identities?

If HR, IT, and individual applications all define identity differently, lifecycle control will always be weak. A strong programme has a clear identity authority and clean integrations.

Question two: Can we prove access matches job intent?

If you cannot answer “Why does this person have access?” without guesswork, you have an access governance problem.

Question three: Are high-risk actions protected differently from low-risk actions?

Logging in to read documentation is not the same as approving payroll changes. OWASP’s discussion of risk-based authentication is useful here because it supports a pattern leaders can get behind: apply stronger checks when risk increases, rather than punishing users at every step.

Question four: Are privileged actions time-bound and auditable?

If admin access is standing access, the organisation is betting the business on perfect behaviour. That is not a strategy.

Question five: Are workload identities inventoried, constrained, and monitored?

If the answer is “we think so”, treat it as “no”. Microsoft’s reporting on workload identity targeting is a clear signal that attackers will keep exploiting this gap.

The Non-Negotiables for an IAM Programme That Actually Reduces Risk

This is the part that should be operationally strict. If these basics are missing, everything else is decoration:

• Centralised identity provider for consistent authentication and policy enforcement
• Phishing-resistant authentication for high-risk users and actions, with a clear roadmap to expand coverage
• Lifecycle automation so joiners, movers, and leavers are not a ticket queue
• Least privilege enforcement with role clarity and time-bound elevation for sensitive access
• Privileged access controls that include monitoring and audit trails
• Workload identity governance for apps, services, secrets, and tokens
• Continuous monitoring and response so suspicious access turns into action, not hindsight

These align cleanly with the direction major frameworks are already pushing, from NIST’s risk-managed identity guidance to CISA’s identity-first Zero Trust posture. 

FAQs

What is the difference between authentication and authorisation?

Authentication confirms who you are (or what a system is). Authorisation determines what you are allowed to access and what you are allowed to do once you are authenticated. IAM needs both, because breaches often happen when authorisation is too broad, not only when authentication fails.

Is IAM only a security responsibility?

No. Security should own the risk posture and controls, but IAM spans HR (identity lifecycle), IT (integration and operations), application owners (access design), and leadership (policy enforcement and accountability). The fastest way to fail is to treat IAM as “a security tool rollout”.

Does MFA solve the identity problem?

MFA dramatically reduces risk, but it does not solve authorisation abuse, OAuth consent attacks, or excessive privileges. Microsoft’s 2025 reporting also shows attackers adapting, including targeting workload identities and MFA bypass paths. MFA is necessary, not sufficient.

Why are workload identities such a concern?

Because they often hold powerful permissions, run continuously, and are rarely reviewed with the same rigour as employee access. Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2025 highlights this as a growing blind spot attackers are actively exploiting.

Final Thoughts: IAM Works When Access Becomes a Deliberate Decision

IAM matters because modern business is built on access. Cloud adoption, SaaS sprawl, third-party collaboration, remote work, and automation have all multiplied the number of identities in play, and attackers know it. The evidence keeps pointing to the same pressure point: credentials and permissions remain one of the most reliable ways to turn normal behaviour into abnormal outcomes.

A strong IAM programme makes access deliberate. It centralises identity so you can enforce consistent controls. It strengthens authentication without making every login miserable. It treats authorisation as a risk decision, not a default. And it finally gives workload identities the same scrutiny you already apply to people.

If you want this to land inside an organisation, frame IAM less as a security upgrade and more as operational integrity. When access is correct, everything downstream becomes easier: incident response, compliance, cloud governance, and even user experience. EM360Tech’s security and infrastructure coverage is built for exactly these moments, where practical control matters more than buzzwords, and where leadership needs clarity they can act on.